WILLIAMSBURG — The company that is seeking to build a sports complex in Williamsburg also wants to complete a smaller entertainment venue nearby.
Earlier this summer before the Tourism Development Grant Review Committee, MEB General Contractors of Virginia Beach proposed a 53,000-square-foot indoor/outdoor multipurpose performance venue that would cost approximately $33 million.
MEB has an agreement with the Historic Triangle Regional Facilities Authority for a 160,000-square-foot indoor sports center near the Colonial Williamsburg Visitor Center. The authority’s membership is composed of members from the Historic Triangle’s localities — Williamsburg and James City and York counties.
The grant review committee, which met earlier this week, recommended to the Williamsburg City Council seven projects worth about $1,726,900 for its consideration for fiscal year 2024 funding. The recommendation for the entertainment venue was $100,000 for FY24, with another $100,000 earmarked for FY25 and $1 million in subsequent years.
“Our funds — the $100,000 — would be for planning,” committee chairman Chris Caracci said. “It’s seed money if the project is accepted, while other details are worked out.”
The Tourist Development Fund was created in 2017 from tax revenue “to increase patronage to restaurants, attractions, hotels and events in the City of Williamsburg through financial assistance and reinvestment in tourism products, place-making projects and public-private partnerships,” the adoption statement said.
“The city figured we would have about $1.8 million for grants this year. Our recommendations fall within the projected funds available,” Caracci said.
Other recommended grants going to the City Council include: Colonial Williamsburg Arrivals Center ($500,000), First Baptist Church vestibule ($250,000), Stryker Center Gallery enhancements ($35,000), African American Heritage Trail ($316,900) and Wayfinding phases 2,3 and 4 ($525,000). The Downtown Wayfinding Project is a plan to make it easier for visitors and residents to navigate around downtown through a signage system.
If the City Council approves the $100,000 for the entertainment venue, “then they will determine how they want the project to go,” Caracci added. “This is all we can do. A decision that follows when council makes a decision will determine what ultimately might be done.”
Unlike the athletic center, which would be funded through the authority involving the city and James City and York counties, the arts center as proposed “would be a project for the city,” Caracci said.
There would be an indoor auditorium and an outdoor amphitheater with production facilities designed between the two settings to accommodate use by both performance arenas without any duplicated services.
MEB materials presented to the committee in July said the arts facility “would be a complimentary development to the future indoor sports and events center. … The project would provide a state-of-the-art facility for local groups to perform and would provide a venue that would attract local, regional, and national acts/events to the Greater Williamsburg Region.”
Representatives from the Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra, Williamsburg Area Arts Commission, Virginia Symphony and Virginia Arts Festival all spoke in support of a new entertainment venue at the committee meeting.
MEB has developed a team of local development, design, construction and operational professions “that will partner with the City to develop a venue that will improve the quality of life for residents and drive economic impact through increased tourism opportunities.”
Rick Hibbett, MEB’s business development manager, declined to discuss details about the entertainment venue proposal.
Wilford Kale, [email protected]
